Seeing in color is often taken for granted, even though about 10% of the human population is colorblind in some way. There aren’t really that many ways to correct for colorblindness, but presumably, once the technology exists for giving people the ability to see in more colors — we could go a bit overboard and try to see in the infrared or the ultraviolet, too. Here are just a few fun links on color perception.

• Chemists are cranking our visual red dial to 11 — enabling people to see redder than red. By modifying proteins that interact with the chromophore rhodopsin, it might be possible to see light with wavelengths as high as 644 nm. [url]
• Tetrachromats might be able to see more colors than most people (who are just trichromats). But that’s nothing compared to mantis shrimp… or butterflies. [url]
• Neil Harbisson was born completely colorblind, so he could only see in black and white — until he started wearing a device on his head so that he could hear colors. Google Glass could presumably do this, too, and maybe we’ll all be wearing visors like Geordi La Forge someday. [url]

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story